Tuesday Roundup

News
The LATimes has posted the complete transcript of today's chat with reporter Michale Hiltzik.

The FFF "Tour of Innocence" hits Denver on March 11, 3-6 pm at the Bicycle Village in Broomfield.

The LA Times posts news about the upcoming Floyd Fairness Fund event in Chicago on Saturday March 10, and provides some further information about recent FFF events:

Floyd Landis brings his barnstorming defense fund tour to the Chicago area on Saturday.
Landis, fighting the positive drug test that could cost him the 2006 Tour de France title, has taken his case to the public by posting evidence in the case on the Internet and appealing for help to raise $500,000 for his legal expenses.
This will be Landis' sixth such appearance. The events have raised $50,000 for the Floyd Fairness Fund, according to Landis' publicist, Michael Henson.

The Wisconsin State Journal prints a small mention of Landis, and thinks he may be due an apology.

BikeBiz gets some highlights from the Hiltzik chat session, and gives us a plug.

Web
LA Times reported Michael Hiltzik had a chat seesion today that many including us attended. Much of it was a rehash of the past few days conversation from DPF. One thing that stood out was confirmation the USADA hearings in May will be public, and that negotiations are now under way to determine how or whether they will be broadcast. Here's an official transcript of the chat, or you can go to one that ORG did the hard way.


Blogs
Velogal made it to the LAT chat with Michael Hiltzik this afternoon and thought that there was some info to be gleaned from the discourse.

Rant is bummed he couldn't get into the LAT chat, but has a link to ORG's transcript, and some questions he'd have liked to have asked. He also plugs us and the FFF Chicago event.

Swany posts that he has sympathized with Floyd's side since the very beginning, and briefly summarizes the case to date making reference to the FFF web site for further information.

The Figurehead does a climb as close as he can get at this time to Alpe D'Huez, and gets help from some famous climbers of the past.

Pommi generally appreciates yesterday's piece "Judging Floyd, Part 1" written by Judge William Hue and David Brower. He objects to some of the political references, and Hue explains in a comment. Steroid Nation also liked the piece very much and thinks it's a great place to start for those who are not familiar with the case.

Bicycle Races are Coming Your Way is VERY pleased to be selling many of his Free Floyd T-shirts, and wants to thank VS for re running the clip of Floyd receiving one of the shirts on last Sunday night's Cyclism Preview. A portion of the proceeds is being donated to the FFF. He kindly thinks that TbV could show people a thing or two when it comes to providing complete Landis coverage.

CaliRado Cyclist reflects that after a strange week in cycling it was rather easy to think of someone who has been as professionally destroyed by cycling as Jan Ullrich.

Medically Challenged writes of a talk by Brent Kay MD before a professional gathering that included a surprise walk-on by one F. Landis. He also objectively discusses what he knows of the case.


Austin King found himself next to Landis for part of a training ride, and got this exclusive interview:

Austin: So how’s the hip doing?
Floyd: The hip’s fine… everything else is fu@$%# though.

Forums
Heated discussion continues on DPF in anticipation of today's on line chat with LAT reporter Michael Hiltzik.

The DPF board has gotten crazy. Supposed "moderator" Rational Head is inflaming people with heavy handed moderation and editing of things he does not personally like, and has banned those who criticise his behavior. VaunTrevi is nowhere to be found, so this may take a while to get resolved. As an example, there is a thread accusing Michael Hiltzik of being a sock puppet, started by one of the loosest cannons on the site. Posts in that thread that criticise the concept, ask it to be merged with the other Hilzik thread, or lock it as inappropriate have been removed from the thread, and edited by third parties with and without acknowledgement. The thread itself remains open, and no one who has made one of the unsubstantiated accusations has been criticised by the moderation in any way.

This is not the first time Rational Head has engaged in unfair, agenda-driven moderation. If it was TBV's forum, his moderation privileges would be removed.

Elsewhere, an actual science discussion has broken out with Marco, Duckstrap, Jimmy and You3 looking at the TE ratio discrepancies between tests. You3 comes up with a new speculative theory about the low-E readings, "split peaks", which he begins investigating. Duckstrap disagree, and thinks it is more likely, "incomplete chromatographic separation in these samples." and wants data he knows that LNDD collected produced to show what happened. This is the same data deBoer asked for at the time of the B sample test.

Waaay over in rec.sports.cricket, some players having problems of their own invites snark about Landis and Mr. Pound, along with some other humor that must be cricket specific. (Cricket is about as easy to follow for beginners as stage racing.)

The legal matters will eventually take care of themselves but in this day and age of washing dirty laundry in public the voyeristic society must also be satisfied. So here are the ten steps to atonement

1. A canning administered by Peter Roebuck. After which at least he will forgive them.
2. An apology to Pakistani public, which may do nothing for the public, but will apparently satisfy Rameez Raja.
3. Never ever bowl a wicket taking delivery to Symonds and Hayden to cancel out the unfair advantage.
4. Stop going to Hakims.
5. Attend a lecture series from Barry Bonds on how to avoid detection, just in case, by using designer drugs.
6. Get Hair as an umpire on their end for the next five hundred overs bowled.
7. Dick Pound gets to nickname Shoaib and Asif like he did Floyd Landis calling him 'roid floyd.
8. Appear on the TV show "Cheaters" where the host shoves a copy of the drug tests in their face asking "Why did you do it?" The faces will be blurred to avoid identification.
9. Verbally carry and deliver Naseem Ashraf and Malcolm Speeds comments to each other.
10. Together with Warne open the, "Antidoping Education Academy for Young Cricketers". No canning will be allowed.

Thought for the Day

In 17th c. Japan, the legal system was more strict and cruel, but at the same time more free wheeling than in America. Execution and compulsory suicide were common punishments, often for trivial offenses. But there were no civil rights, no appeals, no lawyers, no getting off on a technicality—none of the things that complicate our legal system.

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